thedeadlyhook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thedeadlyhook) wrote2004-04-06 11:01 am
thedeadlyhook) wrote2004-04-06 11:01 am
The Pain That I Feel...
This grew out of a response I began writing to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
azdak on the previous post, as a continuation of the discussion there, but it got long. We'd begun talking about that final Spike/Buffy moment in "Chosen," the "I love you" moment, and the validity of how it was presented, and I had a number of emotional things to say there.
This was the original quotation that got me writing:
(azdak says)
There are a lot of things about Chosen that I dislike, but the Spike/Buffy moment isn't one of them. I'm sure it helps that I didn't feel jerked about by the relationship prior to that point (and I didn't feel that it was inconsistent in S6 either), so I didn't get that 'So now I'm supposed to believe she loves him?' reaction. It seems to me that prior to S7 Buffy's feelings for Spike were always stronger than she was prepared to admit (even to herself), that the AR obviously throws a huge wrench in the works, and that in S7 she does, indeed, care about him more than anyone else, without this necessarily implying that he's the one she wants to be with for the rest of her life. She loves him, but not in the way he wants, or not enough. She's incredibly proud of him, and she trusts him (beyond the point where she's entirely rational about it - see the whole unchaining him while he's still triggered argument), she believes he can truly become a good man, and all of that is love, plus there's sexual attraction in there as well; but if it came down to a straightforward choice between spending her life with Spike or with Angel, I don't think she'd choose Spike. Doesn't mean he isn't in her heart; it's perfectly possible to love two men, even if you love one more than the other. I do agree, though, that that goodbye is far more about Spike than it is about Buffy.
There's a large part of me, the soft, Spuffy part, that agrees with this. To be absolutely honest, I'd thought she was in love with him in S6. And I saw her do a lot of things in S7 that consistently supported that. But...
Given that reading, Buffy-in-love, even figuring in their horrible history and "Seeing Red" et al, I couldn't explain why she never said as much to him in the lead-up to the end. In "Touched," in "End of Days," she listens to a couple of the most heartbreaking speeches ever from him and just lets them go with the barest of comments. Then we have that confusing scene with Angel, then she's back with Spike, acting like she cares.
So while I can do the work myself to wrench this into a shape I can live with (she loves him but doesn't necessarily want to settle down with him, etc., as per above), I resent that I have to, that it wasn't explicitly spelled out for me, what she feels. Buffy's reactions in those last three episodes seemed to be more about setting up the plot arc for Spike, to establish that he's willing to die for this woman whether she loves him or not.
...and from his perspective, it really does look like not. She passes up moment after moment when she could have come clean and told him her feelings, whatever they were, and lets it go, all during a point in time where any of them could die the next day, the next moment. Spike lives through those days without holding back - he says what he feels and he stays on the track he set himself on in getting the soul and coming back to Buffy to make his amends.
Buffy, on the other hand, holds back. On the edge of the end, she doesn't say anything, doesn't share this feeling with him, even though it was him telling her such things in "Touched" that gave her the strength to go on. She doesn't share that strength - she asks him to go forward with nothing, alone, to be strong in ways that she herself can't be. She wants to be "just a girl"; she asks him to be superhuman.
So that moment of goodbye that they share, in "Chosen"... it's heartbreaking to me because even if they seem together, as one, for that instant, with the flaring of fire and two souls meeting... they're really still so far apart. Buffy in that moment saying "I love you" and meaning it and thinking this is the perfect time and thing to say for their final goodbye... and him with that sad smile that says everything to me about what she doesn't understand.
Because in that moment we are seeing Spike, dying, for love... and for him love has been all about living, something that you do every day, with and for the one you love - it is life. But for Buffy, apparently, love is something you put off until some future time when you are ready for it, when you're fully baked and feel like accepting or giving it - it's a present. When she's "done" someone will "enjoy" her. So we have this man that's been in her life for years, who actually had it right in "Wrecked" when he told her he was already in her life - although somehow that was pitched to be a bad thing - and who she's kept at arm's length until the very moment of his death to say so, and we're told that she, Buffy, never had it backwards about what love is or isn't. It breaks my heart, and I can't be happy with Buffy in that moment, because when she finally says it, it's like she's giving him a present, a going-away gift. He's been telling her he loves her for years, and showing her with actions that have literally on occasion turned him inside out, and what she gives him in return is this - a statement that he has to struggle against all logic to believe. I would have much rather heard her say something in that moment that felt real to them both, that had no doubts attached to it, that would have felt right - "you were my best friend" or "I forgive you."
And I'm actually fucking tearing up writing this. God, I really am in a melancholy mood.
What got me, ulitmately, about the Buffy/Spike story, is that it ended up being one about despair. It wasn't about life-affirming nature of love - how could it be, when Buffy rejects love constantly with the idea that somehow this makes her a stronger fighter? It wasn't even about how how love can make you a better person - although that message is indeed in there, with Spike's remaking of himself, although he was required to turn into Jesus Christ before this was even faintly acknowledged. We see Buffy deny Spike's definition of real love as something "wild and passionate and dangerous," and yet the only times she sees fit to reward him for his love for her are in the aftermath of these sorts of moments, when he does something huge and painful and passionate for her, when he's broken and falling apart and dying. Then she can say it. Then we can see it in her eyes.
But for the guy who was willing to babysit her sister, fight alongside her every day, put up with her friends that he doesn't like, abide by her rules if she ever bothered to set them? She hasn't got a word for that man. That's the one she leaves waiting in her basement for when such time she deigns to visit, that she can forget about when she chooses to flirt around with others (whilst giving him the steely-eyed glare at the faintest suggestion him doing the same). She doesn't want to hear about how he could change for her, even while she insists that he does, that he go against his very nature constantly. She manages to be disappointed in him no matter what he does - act like a demon, act like a man, be good to her, be bad to her. She never figures out for herself what she does want from him, only punishes him for not being it, whatever it was.
I objected to that. I objected to the story of Buffy/Spike being one of hopeless surrender - that the only way he could prove his love for her was real was to give up every last thing about himself, do exactly as she told him, become a tame animal that jumped at her command. To Buffy, perhaps, this looked like love because it fit her life perfectly - he was there when she needed him, and didn't bother her when she didn't - but I think to every other human being in the world, it looked like what Buffy essentially wanted was a subservient wife, a First Lady, a "mission's boyfriend" that had no demands of his own. This is ultimately what broke up her relationship with Riley, her unwillingness to share the burdens and let him be part of her whole life (sue me, I'm one of those people who actually liked the Riley arc). In "As You Were," we saw Riley's "perfect" relationship as a team of equals. Buffy, we never saw reach for anything like that, although she surely could have. Because Spike was, or could have been, her equal - her adversary and opposite who'd changed from wanting to kill her to wanting to love her. There could have been a story there of how love transforms you and lifts you up, helps you see into places that used to be dark, but it ended up being being how-to manual on crushing spirits. Hers, because she couldn't quite figure out how to treat this one unusual vampire like a human being, his because that was his path, to be her sacrificial animal.
So even if she loved him the whole time, and there is a part of me that sort of believes that she did, I still can't take much comfort. She refused to share it, refused to give as well as receive. We saw him give to her, give everything, give the whole world for her, and whether she loved him or not had by that point become really irrelevant. We were given an ending in which Spike understood love and what it meant - giving to others - and Buffy sure as hell didn't.
God, I'm sad now. Pardon me while I go cry.
azdak on the previous post, as a continuation of the discussion there, but it got long. We'd begun talking about that final Spike/Buffy moment in "Chosen," the "I love you" moment, and the validity of how it was presented, and I had a number of emotional things to say there. This was the original quotation that got me writing:
(azdak says)
There are a lot of things about Chosen that I dislike, but the Spike/Buffy moment isn't one of them. I'm sure it helps that I didn't feel jerked about by the relationship prior to that point (and I didn't feel that it was inconsistent in S6 either), so I didn't get that 'So now I'm supposed to believe she loves him?' reaction. It seems to me that prior to S7 Buffy's feelings for Spike were always stronger than she was prepared to admit (even to herself), that the AR obviously throws a huge wrench in the works, and that in S7 she does, indeed, care about him more than anyone else, without this necessarily implying that he's the one she wants to be with for the rest of her life. She loves him, but not in the way he wants, or not enough. She's incredibly proud of him, and she trusts him (beyond the point where she's entirely rational about it - see the whole unchaining him while he's still triggered argument), she believes he can truly become a good man, and all of that is love, plus there's sexual attraction in there as well; but if it came down to a straightforward choice between spending her life with Spike or with Angel, I don't think she'd choose Spike. Doesn't mean he isn't in her heart; it's perfectly possible to love two men, even if you love one more than the other. I do agree, though, that that goodbye is far more about Spike than it is about Buffy.
There's a large part of me, the soft, Spuffy part, that agrees with this. To be absolutely honest, I'd thought she was in love with him in S6. And I saw her do a lot of things in S7 that consistently supported that. But...
Given that reading, Buffy-in-love, even figuring in their horrible history and "Seeing Red" et al, I couldn't explain why she never said as much to him in the lead-up to the end. In "Touched," in "End of Days," she listens to a couple of the most heartbreaking speeches ever from him and just lets them go with the barest of comments. Then we have that confusing scene with Angel, then she's back with Spike, acting like she cares.
So while I can do the work myself to wrench this into a shape I can live with (she loves him but doesn't necessarily want to settle down with him, etc., as per above), I resent that I have to, that it wasn't explicitly spelled out for me, what she feels. Buffy's reactions in those last three episodes seemed to be more about setting up the plot arc for Spike, to establish that he's willing to die for this woman whether she loves him or not.
...and from his perspective, it really does look like not. She passes up moment after moment when she could have come clean and told him her feelings, whatever they were, and lets it go, all during a point in time where any of them could die the next day, the next moment. Spike lives through those days without holding back - he says what he feels and he stays on the track he set himself on in getting the soul and coming back to Buffy to make his amends.
Buffy, on the other hand, holds back. On the edge of the end, she doesn't say anything, doesn't share this feeling with him, even though it was him telling her such things in "Touched" that gave her the strength to go on. She doesn't share that strength - she asks him to go forward with nothing, alone, to be strong in ways that she herself can't be. She wants to be "just a girl"; she asks him to be superhuman.
So that moment of goodbye that they share, in "Chosen"... it's heartbreaking to me because even if they seem together, as one, for that instant, with the flaring of fire and two souls meeting... they're really still so far apart. Buffy in that moment saying "I love you" and meaning it and thinking this is the perfect time and thing to say for their final goodbye... and him with that sad smile that says everything to me about what she doesn't understand.
Because in that moment we are seeing Spike, dying, for love... and for him love has been all about living, something that you do every day, with and for the one you love - it is life. But for Buffy, apparently, love is something you put off until some future time when you are ready for it, when you're fully baked and feel like accepting or giving it - it's a present. When she's "done" someone will "enjoy" her. So we have this man that's been in her life for years, who actually had it right in "Wrecked" when he told her he was already in her life - although somehow that was pitched to be a bad thing - and who she's kept at arm's length until the very moment of his death to say so, and we're told that she, Buffy, never had it backwards about what love is or isn't. It breaks my heart, and I can't be happy with Buffy in that moment, because when she finally says it, it's like she's giving him a present, a going-away gift. He's been telling her he loves her for years, and showing her with actions that have literally on occasion turned him inside out, and what she gives him in return is this - a statement that he has to struggle against all logic to believe. I would have much rather heard her say something in that moment that felt real to them both, that had no doubts attached to it, that would have felt right - "you were my best friend" or "I forgive you."
And I'm actually fucking tearing up writing this. God, I really am in a melancholy mood.
What got me, ulitmately, about the Buffy/Spike story, is that it ended up being one about despair. It wasn't about life-affirming nature of love - how could it be, when Buffy rejects love constantly with the idea that somehow this makes her a stronger fighter? It wasn't even about how how love can make you a better person - although that message is indeed in there, with Spike's remaking of himself, although he was required to turn into Jesus Christ before this was even faintly acknowledged. We see Buffy deny Spike's definition of real love as something "wild and passionate and dangerous," and yet the only times she sees fit to reward him for his love for her are in the aftermath of these sorts of moments, when he does something huge and painful and passionate for her, when he's broken and falling apart and dying. Then she can say it. Then we can see it in her eyes.
But for the guy who was willing to babysit her sister, fight alongside her every day, put up with her friends that he doesn't like, abide by her rules if she ever bothered to set them? She hasn't got a word for that man. That's the one she leaves waiting in her basement for when such time she deigns to visit, that she can forget about when she chooses to flirt around with others (whilst giving him the steely-eyed glare at the faintest suggestion him doing the same). She doesn't want to hear about how he could change for her, even while she insists that he does, that he go against his very nature constantly. She manages to be disappointed in him no matter what he does - act like a demon, act like a man, be good to her, be bad to her. She never figures out for herself what she does want from him, only punishes him for not being it, whatever it was.
I objected to that. I objected to the story of Buffy/Spike being one of hopeless surrender - that the only way he could prove his love for her was real was to give up every last thing about himself, do exactly as she told him, become a tame animal that jumped at her command. To Buffy, perhaps, this looked like love because it fit her life perfectly - he was there when she needed him, and didn't bother her when she didn't - but I think to every other human being in the world, it looked like what Buffy essentially wanted was a subservient wife, a First Lady, a "mission's boyfriend" that had no demands of his own. This is ultimately what broke up her relationship with Riley, her unwillingness to share the burdens and let him be part of her whole life (sue me, I'm one of those people who actually liked the Riley arc). In "As You Were," we saw Riley's "perfect" relationship as a team of equals. Buffy, we never saw reach for anything like that, although she surely could have. Because Spike was, or could have been, her equal - her adversary and opposite who'd changed from wanting to kill her to wanting to love her. There could have been a story there of how love transforms you and lifts you up, helps you see into places that used to be dark, but it ended up being being how-to manual on crushing spirits. Hers, because she couldn't quite figure out how to treat this one unusual vampire like a human being, his because that was his path, to be her sacrificial animal.
So even if she loved him the whole time, and there is a part of me that sort of believes that she did, I still can't take much comfort. She refused to share it, refused to give as well as receive. We saw him give to her, give everything, give the whole world for her, and whether she loved him or not had by that point become really irrelevant. We were given an ending in which Spike understood love and what it meant - giving to others - and Buffy sure as hell didn't.
God, I'm sad now. Pardon me while I go cry.
A B/A perspective...
I often wonder how many of my opinions are skewed by my B/A leanings. For example, if you watch those early eppies, back when Spike was a thorn in Buffy's side, I think you can see the beginnings of an unusual relationship. Why does she turn to him at the beginning of season 6? I think she has no choice and from there begins a deepening relationship. To say that she used him, though, is to ignore the fact that he used her and on many occasions, I believe, tried to isolate her even more than she already was. Did he love her? Yes, I believe he did. Unselfishly? No. Did she love him? Yes, I believe she did. But why didn't she ever tell him? He gave her plenty of opportunities and she never took them.
I don't believe Spike went to Africa for a soul. Regardless, he stormed off because he was stymied;Buffy wouldn't give him what he wanted. I believe what she wanted was Angel. (Naturally, that's what I am gonna believe, right?) I think B/S shippers must have been horribly disappointed by "Chosen." But when I watched it again I felt that there was a certain truth to what transpired. (I, personally, hated the whole cookie thing, btw.)Even Spike knew and accepted that Buffy didn't love him the way he *wanted* to be loved. After all, he saw what we saw: Buffy's reaction to Angel in the crypt.
No one but Spike could have ever understood what Buffy had gone through post "The Gift." Her sexual relationship with him was deliberate. So was her withholding the thing he most wanted to hear: 'I love you.' One of the saddest moments in the whole series was the bit in "The Gift," when Buffy and Spike return to her house for weapons and he thanks her for treating him like a man; that was genuine. But I am not sure what came after was...and certainly there was nothing particularly "loving" about their relationship as it unfolded. Doesn't mean it wasn't potent or honest, I just think that it ever had the makings of a healthy relationship.
Yes, again, I realize that I am a B/A chick speaking to mostly B/Sers...but I found the B/S relationship infinitely fascinating. Still do.
Sorry that this is horribly inarticulate. And possibly unwelcome.
Re: A B/A perspective...
Sorry that this is horribly inarticulate. And possibly unwelcome.
No, this is terribly interesting because you seem to share a lot of the same thoughts I'd been having about how the relationship actually came across. As broadcast, you definitely get the impression that Angel is "it" for Buffy, that what she went through with Spike, "not pretty" and real as it was, was only a sideline to her main event, which is and always will be Angel. I'd actually been thinking about this as the basis for another long piece I've got in the works, about the evolving nature of Buffy/Angel and Buffy/Spike throughout the series, but the key thing to me seems to be this - that Buffy could not bring herself to "risk the pain" for anyone but Angel, no matter what else she might feel. This is something none of the men in her life have never been able to understand, the shadow of her ex being really that long, and it's especially poignant in Spike's case, because he's been in Angel's shadow before, of course, with Drusilla.
My main complaint with that, however, was that it made Buffy look immature, as if she hadn't ever moved in her mindset from some sort of swoony teenage dreamboat phase, That's insulting thing to suggest both about her and every man in her life - the "cookies" thing played extremely teenybopper. So my main issue was not so much that she didn't get together with Spike, although I found it sad because their rapport was so natural and I have issues with Buffy apparently not learning anything from the "using him" phase, but that she wasn't shown as having evolved, as looking at Angel through a woman's eyes and saying "you're really the one I want" instead of playing the two of them off each other like a spoiled high school girl. I'd like to think that even if she ended up with Angel someday, it would involve some growing up on her part... and the way she parted with Spike... I really didn't see that happening. Right now, Angel's too adult for her.
Thanks so much for coming by to comment! : )
Re: A B/A perspective...
I agree: Buffy didn't always act in a mature or particularly attractive manner when it came to the men in her life. I am, however, willing to cut her a little slack. In just about every other way she was expected to abandon her life for the sake of her calling. Perhaps her emotional growth was sacrificed because of it.
I don't know where she'll end up, or with whom, but it has certainly been, while not always pleasant, interesting to watch her try to navigate through the landmines of romance. Let's face it, she had plenty on her plate to contend with. *g*
Re: A B/A perspective...
Buffy didn't always act in a mature or particularly attractive manner when it came to the men in her life. I am, however, willing to cut her a little slack. In just about every other way she was expected to abandon her life for the sake of her calling. Perhaps her emotional growth was sacrificed because of it.
This is the basis of another piece I may have to write first, about Buffy. I've come to the conclusion that the reason why people have such varied responses to the character are that they're comparing her to their own life experiences (which is, to be honest, what we all do with fictional characters to whom we can somewhat relate) and depending on the life you're talking about, you can come up with some seriously different answers. I can't go into this more without going long, but in short form, I think Buffy is more sympathetic to people with lives very different from mine, and perhaps to those with a more traditional view of femininity.
I think I made the mistake of thinking of Buffy in S7 as a bit like a profile of a "supermom" who has to juggle family life and career... and she kinda ends up bailing on family for career, then bails on the career too, if you read "Chosen" to mean that she's now "free" from Slaying, that she can "live like a person." So my disppointment with Buffy - and again, I might do a longer essay about this - was that she didn't come up with an integrated form for her life that didn't require her to turn into this hypermasculinzed, stoic hero figure. I wanted to see her "have it all" by accepting help from those around her who loved her instead of keeping to this idea that she's all alone. Because even with the Slayer spell, it seems to me like Buffy ends the series pretty alone, and her "living like a person" - well, does that mean "not having to care about anybody but myself"? Going back to a me, me, me existence of shoes and shopping and new boyfriends? It felt like reversion to a more immature state, and it bothered me.
I guess that's why I really don't want to see her with either Spike or Angel at this point. Spike... well, that's a completely lost opportunity, methinks. Even if she trusts him now, I don't think he trusts her, and shouldn't. Angel thinks hard about helping other people; Buffy seems to have seen it as a job she wished she could quit. I don't see Angel quitting his job.
I talk too long, but thanks again for stepping in here. It's helping me firm up some of my thoughts here, especially about Angel.
Re: A B/A perspective...
Which is very much how I've read the character. She couldn't tell Spike she loved him because I don't think she's really sure how to do that in the small ways. She can save the world, die for it, almost kill herself to save someone she loves, etc but she's not really learned how to do the small stuff. I think her relationship with Angel was very much about the big sweeping grandness for both of them. ("I lost my soul for you!" "I turned back time for you!" "I go against my calling for you!" etc).
All of which is why, while I loathe the wording of the cookie dough speech as I do most of "Chosen", the point she makes is a valid one that I wish the show had gone for earlier. Buffy doesn't know who she is yet. She didn't go through that period of leaving home and finding herself and all that good stuff. I didn't read it as "my cookies will be done one day and now you boys fight over 'em" I read it as "I don't know who the hell I am and can't be with anyone until I know that".
Re: A B/A perspective...
Whereas with Spike, all those gestures were on his side, and she chose to ignore or belittle them almost without exception, including his getting a soul (e.g., "Get It Done"). She kept saying, over and over in S6, that he couldn't change, but behaved like an angry girlfriend if he didn't live up to the expectations that she insisted she didn't have. This kind of behaviour I can't fob off with her "Conversations With Dead People" explanation of her "wanting to be punished." She took serious advantage of someone she knew loved her (remember the musical?). This is why "CWDP" never sat well with me - Buffy in S6 didn't act like she wanted to be punished, but instead like someone who was enjoying the punishing, dishing out the pain that she insisted Spike was in love with (references to her biting, acting like "an animal," which she vehemently denies, etc). S6 can be viewed, in a lot of ways, as Buffy's own Angelus phase - her punishing Spike for feeling about her the way she used to feel about Angel.
But worse, to my mind, on the whole "what does Buffy want in a relationship" question, there was "Seeing Red." "That kind of love doesn't last," she says, of grand passion of the type she had with Angel. What the fucking hell does she mean by that? She could have that kind of love with Spike, but won't, because she can't "trust" him enough, afraid, maybe, of a repeat of Angel/Angelus on some inner level, of having to kill a lover? Or is she saying she does want a love of "little things," a "gentler" style of love that so far hasn't been the norm between them because she hasn't allowed it to be, always running off before anything resembling basking in the afterglow could be indulged in? (e.g., her comment in "As You Were" of "he's not getting any gentler" - does she want him to?) Buffy seems to have some very clear ideas about what she wants in "Seeing Red" that she later, what, decides were wrong? Emotionally regresses out of? Huh?
And as a counterpoint, I always think back to "Intervention," where we see Spike play out his fantasy with the Buffybot - yes, lots of sex, but of a frightfully cute and cuddly and playful type. This was his dream - to have Buffy as a lover, not as a conquest. There were no rape fantasies here. In contrast, Buffy gives us her fantasy in "Chosen" as two guys fighting over her (her whole "ooh, there could be oil involved" musing). Uh, yuck. So does she not know what she wants, or is she just a spoiled little princess? Or do they both add up to the same thing?
I read it as "I don't know who the hell I am and can't be with anyone until I know that".
And I could have been okay with that had they, as you said, placed this thought much earlier in the season - say, around the time of "CWDP." In "Chosen," she says, "I used to think there was something wrong with me," which plays, frankly, as her self-perception of incompleteness being used as an excuse for the both her past behaviour and any future responsibilty. Again, if that's where they were going to leave the character, I would have liked a few episodes to get used to that idea instead of being hit with it in such a way that it did raise all the unappetizing questions we're talking about here. Not to mention if she'd given Spike the "let's be friends" speech much earlier, wouldn't that have done just as well for his arc, to establish that he'd been willing to fight with her/die for her without his love being returned?
The whole thing was pointlessly agonizing. And I hated the way Angel had be dragged into it as well, as if he doesn't have enough angst in his life already than to have to hear "I'm not ready yet" from the same girl who, when he walked away years ago, was already picking out their mental wedding china.
But what I'm really unhappy with is Buffy's emotional stunting being held up as okay, even powerful. That somehow, by admitting she wasn't "ready," that she should be viewed as a strong woman.
Strong would have been to say something before this.